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The Obama administration lavished praise this week on a Kurdish group in Syria that helped score a victory over Islamic State militants in the border town of Kobani after four months of fighting. But U.S. officials also made another gesture that seemed a lot less friendly. State Department officials rebuffed a request from Salih Muslim, head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, for a visa to visit the United States to deliver a speech. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank, and pro-Kurdish U.S. lawmakers, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), had urged the State Department to allow a visit. That the rejection came to light "on the day we...

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The Obama administration lavished praise this week on a Kurdish group in Syria that helped score a victory over Islamic State militants in the border town of Kobani after four months of fighting.
But U.S. officials also made another gesture that seemed a...

President Obama sought to transfer some swagger to a deflated group of Democrats on Thursday, saying the American people would respond if the party made a forceful case for what it stands for.
Addressing the thinned-out ranks of House Democrats after...

President Obama revived his call Thursday to end federal spending limits linked to a last-resort deficit deal reached nearly four years ago, an appeal that fell squarely in the divide between Republicans in Congress who want to rein in costs and those who...

President Obama will propose spending about $74 billion more next year than is allowed under federal spending caps, a revival of his push to end across-the-board spending cuts imposed under a bipartisan compromise.
Due out next week, Obama’s budget for...

Both the White House and new Republican leaders have mentioned tax reform as an area of possible progress in the new Congress, but the short life and unhappy fate of one small provision the Obama administration proposed shows why that talk is unlikely...

The surprise deal between the United States and Cuba to reopen embassies and restore diplomatic relations after 53 years in the deep freeze involved no clandestine meetings in either country or participation of an aging Fidel Castro.
Instead, an unlikely...

In a decision that could force disclosure of some of the secret money flooding into elections, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that groups that run election-related ads must reveal their donors.
The Federal Election Commission overstepped when it wrote a...

Lawmakers' votes this week on whether or not to train and equip Syrian opposition forces in the fight against Islamic State were arguably the most consequential after nearly two years in which Congress is likely to set a new low for productivity.But...

What was supposed to be a no-drama final session of Congress before the campaign season turned into anything but as President Obama's new strategy to combat the threat from Islamic State resulted in a wrenching vote that is likely to reverberate...

WASHINGTON — In 2011, with the government dangling on the edge of default, President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) engaged in nearly daily negotiations. There were regular phone calls, talks and red wine at the White House. There were...

WASHINGTON — The latest federal budget showdown has quickly set the stage for the next one, as Republicans and Democrats have just three months to craft a new agreement to avoid another shutdown crisis.
This time, though, the parties come to the table...

WASHINGTON – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday will consider a newly drafted resolution to authorize military force against the Syrian government that specifically rules out any commitment of ground forces and would narrow the time frame...

WASHINGTON – The federal deficit has shrunk to its lowest level since 2008, when President Obama won election at the start of the Great Recession, and is on track to decline even more thanks to an improving economy, higher taxes on the wealthy and reduced...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), the former Republican vice presidential nominee, launched an attack Monday on the nation's poverty programs, provoking an election-year confrontation with the White House amid a growing focus on income inequality....